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Fultz4thewin

The Official 2015-2016 Regular Season Thread

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Sharp has it mostly right, and I think he nails Oladipo's performance perfectly: he was between good and spectacular last night at every individual thing except 3pt shooting.

I love Sharp's writing, I just don't see how Oladipo is clearly our best player

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I love Sharp's writing, I just don't see how Oladipo is clearly our best player

 

He does everything well except shoot the three and maybe draw fouls. Who else has a overall game as good as his?

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We still have to learn to close out games in crunch time....and eventually get some officiating respect but we finally have a roster that can compete night in and out.

 

Says a lot about Mario playing down the stretch for a coach who is well known for not playing rookies.

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Last night was a good night, though I thought we should have won it, but with the refs swallowing their whistles like Halloween candy there was no way we could have gotten in a win there. Especially when a breeze knocking over a player could become a foul against the Magic. I'm not too worried about the Thunder, I think AG on Durant and Payton on Westbrook should be good. Sure, I don't expect them to lock them down, but I expect them to slow them up. Also, I don't think they will be able to contain every player in our starting 5.

 

Stranger's Thought:

 

-Victor played solid (see what I did there? Not good or bad. Instead of just going to the extremes lets just label it as what it really was). I do think he is going to get better than what we saw. Last night had a lot of fifty fifty shots and a lot of refs just being idiots to where I can't really assess the star power of Dipo. There were a few flashes and a few times last night when I saw him take a shot and just thought it was going in only to be surprised as it popped out. Dipo isn't bad, in fact he did a lot of things right. It is why he had a double double, played solid defense, and even handled ball handling duties for a bit. Yes, he had Beal to defend, but when a streaky shooter is hot sometimes it just doesn't matter what you do. He is going to score. What Victor needs to work on is going to the free throw line at least six to eight times a game, he will become our "best player" simply by getting to the foul line and getting free points. He is a good enough free throw shooter to accomplish that.

 

-Payton was...just wow. I remember ragging on him during Pre-season and summer league because he looked like he didn't care. But last night was eye opening. He was hitting shots, playing D, grabbing boards, passing the ball...he was doing everything a star PG should do and making it look easy. I don't like that he stopped trying to score later in the game, but I am happy enough with the overall performance that it just doesn't bother me too much. He still needs to work on consistently being a threat and being aggressive at the very start of games. He should be the guy when the offense is stagnating as it was to go out and get himself rolling to get his team-mates rolling.

 

-Fournier...who? No seriously, what happened last night to Evan? His shot didn't even look close to good and he was really bad defensively. If he wants to be a starter at the Small Forward slot he is going to need to do better than this. Otherwise Mario is going to take that slot and make him expendable...or Gordon.

 

-Harris is one of the guys who I don't think needs to do anything differently than he did last night. To be honest, Harris did it all. He played extremely well, but didn't really perform in the fourth. If Harris is to be our closer, as Skiles seems to want him to be with the play he drew up, he needs to be a fourth quarter maistro and take over games in the 4th. Probably my only complaint.

 

-Nick was pretty much ineffective this game, I really don't know what to say about it. I did expect a scoring drop with a change of offensive style, but I didn't expect a big drop like this. I think Nick needs to work on being a pick and pop scorer, his jumper is reliable enough for him to be a 16 ppg guy and arguably one of the better offensive centers in the NBA. I also do think he could be the focal point of the offense on a bad night if everything goes wrong as he has good enough post moves to get points or make plays. All in all, a quiet night for Nick, but I expect him to bounce back in OKC.

 

-Mario, guy was shooting good, and as a rookie he was doing pretty well for when he was called upon. There were a few issues in terms of turnovers, but those will be fixed, and I'm sure Skiles won't fault him for trying to hard. I expect Mario to start at some point this season and even become the best shooter on the team, but I just don't know when that will happen this season. He needs to correct his turnover issues, but beyond that he had a good game.

 

-Gordon should have been playing in the fourth. Gordon was playing like a monster and then got benched, as soon as he was benched I knew our gooses were cooked. It is why I'm highly in favor of him starting at the three tomorrow. I think he can do things to Durant in terms of defense and wear him out on offense. Rust is very evident for Gordon, but he is still a freak athlete, and makes plays at the rim that very few others can. I expect him to also gain a starting role sometime this year.

 

Team Defense Grade: A

Team Offense Grade: C

Overall Grade: B

 

Closing Statement: The team is on the right track and a lot of shots that usually go in just bounced off. Just thinking that if Dipo had made one more three we would have beat a second round playoff team in our season opener. I think we are going to the playoffs, but the real test will come when OKC comes to town. Is our defense a fluke or is it what it is going to be? Is our offense bad or is it better than it appears? The game against OKC will reveal. All in all, I'm fine with the game, and do think we should have won, but there was a lot more going on than the typical "blame Dipo" crap floating around. So... on to the next!

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I am not worried about Vuch. Gortat is very good defender in the low and high post but you are right about Fournier.

 

I just don't think Evan is starter quality in this league and does much better off the bench. Rather start Mario now and bring Gordon off the bench with close too starter minutes as the key 6th man. Evan is 15 minutes per game player not the 27 he played last night.

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I get why some people like Oladipo's play and also why some don't. I think he tries too hard at times and that was apparent in the first half.

 

But in the 4th quarter he settled down and just made plays - he was excellent then. If we can get that type of efficiency more consistently from him we are in great shape. His defense was so much better last night.

 

Did anyone expect to see Eflrid play that well in his first game back? I don't think so. He is a special player, but he really needs to keep working on his shot. Really love a lot of the things he brought last night though, especially considering he had to guard Wall and was not at full health.

 

Tobias at the 4 is a very nice mismatch. we need to see how it goes against bigger teams but he is money in the low post. He easily beats his man down the floor unless the other team goes small on him.

 

What I really liked last night is how WAS had this much hyped running style and the Magic essentially outran them and were wearing them down. The only thing that keeps WAS in that game is John Wall is a star player.

 

The Magic defense held them to under 90 points. That is a huge change from last year and something to be positive about. specially since the players are still confused on plays and rotations out there on both sides.

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I get why some people like Oladipo's play and also why some don't. I think he tries too hard at times and that was apparent in the first half.

 

But in the 4th quarter he settled down and just made plays - he was excellent then. If we can get that type of efficiency more consistently from him we are in great shape. His defense was so much better last night.

 

Did anyone expect to see Eflrid play that well in his first game back? I don't think so. He is a special player, but he really needs to keep working on his shot. Really love a lot of the things he brought last night though, especially considering he had to guard Wall and was not at full health.

 

Tobias at the 4 is a very nice mismatch. we need to see how it goes against bigger teams but he is money in the low post. He easily beats his man down the floor unless the other team goes small on him.

 

What I really liked last night is how WAS had this much hyped running style and the Magic essentially outran them and were wearing them down. The only thing that keeps WAS in that game is John Wall is a star player.

 

The Magic defense held them to under 90 points. That is a huge change from last year and something to be positive about. specially since the players are still confused on plays and rotations out there on both sides.

 

 

i think payton has developed enough of a track record to say we should completely ignore his play in summer league, pre-season, all star games, and other contests that dont matter because he doesn't really care. he turns up his intensity for games that matter and i guess that's all we should be focusing on.

 

so next year when he sucks in the pre-season again lets remember who he is.

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Says a lot about Mario playing down the stretch for a coach who is well known for not playing rookies.

 

Yeah I was saying that in the chat last night. That is a big time statement from Skiles. To play a rookie in crunch time in his first game goes against everything Skiles has done in the past. It looks like Mario will be starting sooner than later I think.

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i think payton has developed enough of a track record to say we should completely ignore his play in summer league, pre-season, all star games, and other contests that dont matter because he doesn't really care. he turns up his intensity for games that matter and i guess that's all we should be focusing on.

 

so next year when he sucks in the pre-season again lets remember who he is.

 

Yeah I remember saying that. But to see him turn it up so quickly on game 1 after being hurt - thats just incredible. Love his game a lot. If Rubio can learn to shoot, so can Elf - thats how I choose to look at it moving forward.

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